The Bush Administration committed a major blunder Sunday in the ongoing attempt to stabilize Iraq when American soldiers shut down production and padlocked the gates of Al Hawsa, a radical Shi'ite weekly newspaper in Baghdad.
The move came in response the paper's rabidly anti-American stance and distortion of the truth regarding the American-led occupation. Al Hawsa, moreover, served as a favorite forum for Moqtada al-Sadr, a vehemently anti-American Shi'ite cleric who has repeatedly called for insurgency against the occupation and has threatened to create his own militia.
Al Hawsa's misrepresentation of the truth was reprehensible -- it blamed terrorist acts that killed 50 Iraqi policemen on an American missile, for example. And though al-Sadr is a dangerous hothead who represents a grave threat to the prospects for success in Iraq, forcibly silencing his method of communication will only be counterproductive. Freedom of information is the foundation of democracy, and should not lightly be abrogated.
The problem here is a serious mixed message. Despite the president's rhetoric, the real message to Iraqis is quite clear: We want you to have a democracy, but one that meets the standards that we impose upon you, rather than the standards which we impose upon ourselves. Clearly, the First Amendment, which lays the foundations for a free and democratic society, does not apply to Iraqis. It is regrettable that the symbolic message adopts such a patronizing tone.
The action against Al Hawsa is indicative of U.S. failure on one of the key fronts in the war on terror -- the so-called battle for the "hearts and minds" of people living in states prone to terrorist proliferation, particularly those in the Middle East. As long as the United States is perceived as an aggressive imperial juggernaut intent on eliminating Islam, we will lose the war.
President Bush has been the focal point of much anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world and with good reason. Recently, however, he has begun positively to affect the American image in minds of foreign Islamic audiences. In that vein, the United States launched Al Hurra, an ostensibly independent Arabic-language alternative to Al-Jazeera, the popular pan-Arab news service that regularly and abrasively criticizes US policy. Yet Al Hurra, which, ironically, given the stifling of Al Hawsa, means "The Free One," has been lambasted in the Arab press as an Arabic-language version of Fox News. The station should be permitted to communicate with the Islamic world on its own terms, not the President's.
Bush has also worked to increase intensive training in Arabic and in Islamic culture and customs. This, too, is a step in the right direction, because the war for the hearts and minds of Iraqis -- and Muslims around the world -- is one that will largely be waged through individual contacts and through mutual understanding. The better our troops can communicate with Iraqis, the better the chances of successful reconstruction. Congress should overcome partisan dispute to increase funding for language and culture training of GIs.
This by itself, of course, is not enough. The United States should maintain a consistent focus on interaction and dialogue with the leaders and the people of the Islamic world. President Bush has already failed in this regard by issuing his vision of a democratic Middle East -- the "Greater Middle East Initiative" -- without consulting Arab leaders. Furthermore, the U.S. must maintain its commitment to upholding the democratic principles that we ostensibly want to impart to the Islamic world, even if the results are occasionally unsatisfactory. Papers like Al Hawsa, however inflammatory, must enjoy the same freedom of the press enjoyed by The New York Times. The lies of such publications should instead be countered by efforts to reach out to its citizens through direct dialogue, quick reconstruction, speedy payments to families who lost family members in the war and consideration of uniquely Iraqi desires for self-rule. Iraqis don't believe American soldiers because they don't trust them. If an atmosphere of trust instead of one of fear can be created, cooperation will increase and reconstruction will be easier for both sides.
Our occupation of Iraq is an incredible foreign policy gamble. If we can leave Iraq a stable, healthy and open democracy, people in countries like Jordan and Pakistan will realize the benefits and freedoms promised by democracy. It may have been the wrong decision, but now that the United States is committed, failure is not an option. It would be irresponsible and disastrous to U.S. interests to cut and run in Iraq, even if that means delaying the transfer of sovereignty past June 30. The war on terror and the prospects for free society in the Middle East may well hinge on success or failure in Iraq. Let us hope that both President Bush and his opponent, Sen. John Kerry, are firmly committed to providing the resources to bring an open democracy to Iraq and to fight the war on terror in the vital and neglected arena of public perception.